For those of us who can't wait for the HBO series to start seeing every little detail of George R.R. Martin's Westeros, artist Xavier Garcia has started creating A Song Of Ice And Fire concept art. Here's his Jon Snow.

And yes, that's The Wall that Jon's standing on. I have to admit, this isn't exactly how I'd pictured Jon after reading the first few books, but it's pretty close. Garcia writes that ASOIAF is his favorite book series, and "I want to go through the characters, weapons, environments and flesh the heck out of it." He adds:

My intended style... is going to be more fantasy than realistic (think Diablo III rather than Lord of the Rings) and I am fully aware that the cool thing about the books is how "realistic" they portray the fantasy setting. Hopefully that will still be the case, but I just wanted to set the tone on stylization.

Here are his attempts at some of the most memorable characters, including the Lannister patriarch, Tywin, and the fearsome Hound, Sandor Clegane:

And here's Garcia's version of Jaime Lannister, who he writes is "my favorite character. He's also pretty distinct visually, so hes going to be fun to be fun with his armor designs."